The tiny Irish stock on the brink of landing 'the first' post-sanction oil deal in Iraq. Ref 'Fleet Street Letter' 12-04-04..

This from the Times Online

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,2706-1405731,00.html

Petrel plunges on loss of Iraq deals
By Peter Klinger

PETREL RESOURCES lost more than half its market value yesterday on fears that the Dublin-based oil and gas vehicle had missed out on potentially lucrative oilfield development contracts in Iraq.
Petrels AIM-traded shares plunged 51p to 46p after reports from Baghdad that the contracts had gone to companies from Turkey and Canada.

Petrel shares have been riding high over the past few months on hopes that it would be one of the first Western companies to receive an oilfield development contract in post-war Iraq.

In September, Petrel said that it had been invited by the Iraq Oil Ministry for an urgent and direct discussion to finalise its tender to develop the Khurmala Dome field. Petrel has submitted tenders for two other fields in Iraq, including the Hamrin project.

The Khurmala field has the potential to produce 100,000 barrels of oil a day.

Petrels board said yesterday that it had received no notification from the Oil Ministry in relation to the report that the Khurmala contract had been awarded to a Turkish company and the Hamrin contract to a Canadian company.

We are seeking immediate clarification from the Oil Ministry in Iraq, the board said.

An Iraqi ministry official said that the Hamrin contract had been awarded to a company called IOG. However, Ironhorse Oil and Gas, a Canadian company, denied that it was the company in question.

The Iraqi ministry is studying offers for a third contract to raise the output of the Suba-Luhais oilfield from 50,000 barrels a day to 180,000.

The oilfield contracts will be Iraqs first oil deals since the end of the rule of Saddam Hussein.


Irish Independant.

Petrel price halved on 'lost' contracts
Friday December 17th 2004
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THE share price of Irish exploration company Petrel Resources tanked spectacularly yesterday after a Reuters report stated that a Turkish company and a Canadian company had won two Iraqi oil development contracts worth $350m.

Petrel had made a strong bid for each of the two contracts to develop large oilfields at Khurmala and at Hamrin in Iraq, and had also bid for a third contract to develop two other oilfields at Subha and Luhais.

Petrel's share price dropped from almost 99p in London to as low as 25p before recovering to 45.5p by the late afternoon for a halving of its value on the day.

The company has 60 million shares in issue which meant its value went from 59.4m yesterday morning to less than 27.3m in the late afternoon.

Chairman John Teeling, (above), has 3.5 million shares worth 3.76m earlier this week, while director David Horgan has 2.6 million worth 2.8m earlier.

Their stakes are now worth less than half those figures.

Over the past two years Petrel's share price has rocketted from a level of 3p to a high of 109p on the back of hopes that the company will strike it rich in war-torn Iraq.

In July 2003 the company released its annual results under a banner "Petrel is Open for Business in Baghdad".

The company's chairman John Teeling said yesterday he "felt awful for shareholders" including his fellow directors. "The founding families have over 20pc of this company," he said.

Dr Teeling said Petrel director David Horgan was trying to contact Oil Ministry officials to confirm the report.

"We expected the Council of Ministers to make the announcements to the media followed by notification to the winners and losers," Dr Teeling said.

"We don't know we haven't got them (the contracts)".

Petrel initially proposed a risk-sharing contract for the projects, where it could earn a percentage of any new oil discovered.

Iraq's oil ministry rejected that offer and planned toward the contracts on a "dollar" basis for engineering and equipment supply services, Ahmed al Shamaa, under-secretary of oil, said.

With no engineering capability, Petrel planned to connect with specialist oil and gas-services companies to do the work if it won the contracts, Teeling said.

Petrel's share price hit a level of 107.5p earlier this week after it announced the winning of an exploration licence in Jordan across the border from Block 6 in the Sunni Triangle in Iraq.

Petrel's stock price quintupled in the first nine months of 2004 and reached a record high of 133.5p on October 7 as oil prices soared.

Jim Aughney

Write up in FT & the mail , can someone paste it please.

Mes amities . l come here to neither bury great Ceasar nor praise him . ,But to suggest the saga of PET is complete is an absolute misnomer . lts a hard call as to what will happen here .As much as i agree with Kellman in his general appraisal of the company were they to fail in winning ANY of the already mentioned contracts ,l think he is somewhat guilty of completely ignoring the mechanics and dynamics of the market.Namely the market always initially overeacts and corrects itself the following day Besides ,,, On Dec 16th 2004 at 6-38 {PST} trading in IOG {lronhorse} were suspended under provisions of section 10-(99(1) pending immediate contact with the market regulation services after the said stock leapt 25% despite absolutely derisory volumes . This action immediately led to a rapid statement/rebuttal by Jim Wilson VP(Finance) and CFO of lronhorse { to which Tokyo erruditely makes more than adequate reference } and which manifestly illustrates the company has no interest whatsoever in the development of ANY lraqi fields .The regulator appeared totally satisfied, and subsequently, at 10-30 {PST}, shares in the company resumed trading ... ,,,Now this opens a far broader and wider issue .Namely the validity of that RNS . Now while ammedments to Regulatory announcements are not uncommon as more detailed news of deals are made known to the market , it is not a secret in the city that in certain cases RNS announcements have proven to be both either invalid or inaccurate or both . Or damned fraudulent .This fact can be bourne out by NML, another mining outfit, who themselves were victims of an RNS hoax which led to a plethora of massive sells earliar this year. ,,,, Now ln the interests of brevity i will quickly come to the point,,,When PET was treading water in the 103-117p parameter not so long ago, MMS were very reluctant to improve the spread flying right in the face of some rather heavy buying{ as has always been the case with the stock in question} ,and yet almost every minisule sell resulted in their immediate downmarking . Now since Pet hit its nadir at 26p the scenario has been totally thrown into reverse gear - Heavy sells are ignored and every buy is sending the share ever higher ,,,MMS are running scared ,,,,,,,,,l think it could be a matter of an hour,and we could see Pet back at the 90p level . Such is the mechanics of the market Qui sait ? ,,,a'bientot /,,,Bonne chance .

aldwickk look back one entry and you will see two write ups.

One point - The Rueters news item never came out electronically, but was on thier web site.

That in itself is very unusual.

ziblot and many others out there, my heart is with you all, we (my viewing friends and I) watched yesterday and took the opportunity to buy more. So ziblot you aren't the only holder in the barrel. As to the news there is cloak and dagger stuff going on, (fogging of issues of how to release news and companies not hearing before journalists). I am sure PET would have heard prior to rueters if there is more contractual news to follow, so lets all see what today brings.... Ziblot my misses is gonna go madder (pretty up there already) but it just looks like its a longer wait.

watcher

How could Petrel be quoted as saying they had no competition on the first two tenders? This was before the blackout, and maybe before they were called back for "urgent discussions". Perhhaps the blackout was due to their first submissions being too high, and to be informed that the tenders were being put out again. In this instance, if it's a fact, I believe the "no competition" statement should have been retracted, as a minimum, to enable investors to reassess their exposure. I bought in mainly on this statement, and feel misled..

IOG have no involvement here? So the upshot is; no one knows who the second company is? Have Reuters confirmed that the first co is actually Everasia or is even this in doubt?

NOTHING!!! I DONT LIKE THIS BUT IM HOLDING!!!! VERY NERVOUSLY

dexter01,
you are a serious danger to all small investors and should cease posting forthwith. Warning posters against my posts (I am not Simple Simon by the way), and accusing me of deramping is a deliberate attempt to con already shafted investors to stay in this bombed-out company and for what reason? It seems to me you are one of those types who bought at the top at about 120p-130p and are now trying desperately to pump and dump. Posters like you are responsible for sucking in inexperienced investors into buying this dog in the first place and now you are still shamelessly trying to keep them in. I have read your nonsense on other bbs and it appears to me that there are a bunch of you ramping this company for some covert reason. Why else would you still be praising the likes of Teeling & Co when it is obvious to all that he has shafted the lot of you and not for the first time either! Perhaps you are one of his many relations or friends who has invested in this and are trying to help him push the price back up so that you can squeeze another few drops of blood out of the hapless investors whom you have already sucked in?

Bought 5000 , 37.65.

It has no hope now....time to bail out...before it gets to 10p

Where is Tokyo now?

kellman,
bollocks, post something worth reading.
i have stated facts, and just for the record, if you had read my posts, i sold yesterday at 75p at nearly a double up on my investment, that must really make me a mug.
by the way which stone did you crawl from under, we have`nt had the displeasure of putting up with your crap before!
dexter

ps. i`m not still praising jt and dh if you bothered to read my post

Massive drop of 10p this morning to 36p now.

hlyeo98 - I'm still here!! It has no hope now?, are you looking at the same level 2 screen I am?

This is going to take alot longer than we originally thought, but the shares I have left in PET are staying for the long term, if you or anyone else wants to get out, then do it. We will most certainly see an RNS soon, up-dating us on the situation, then one on Jordan, then one on Sudan, then Block 6, then the other 6 tenders to be submitted to Iraq next year. I'm sitting on a loss from yesterdays top up @ 44pence, but I'm a big boy and am not going to keep crying at my losses!!

Tokyo

level 2 3 v 2 - 42/45

Closed + 7.35.

Bought 10,000 @ a tad more than 39p ,,,,But theis is NOT a LEVEL playing field.lt is UTTERLY ABSURD !!! This stock is being manipulated and MMS are taking the absolute p%%% !!!! lts extortion by any other name !!!!!!....ln my position as an energy anaylist for a major house i am in the process of writing a strong worded letter to the regulators.

Updating with more bad news?

dexter01, this is what you posted a few minutes ago, sounds like ramping to me.
(and cut out the foul language this is a respectable bb, UNlike your rampers threads on ADVFN.)

"even at this sp, PET`s market cap. is 30m, so there is plenty of upside from here, it just might take a little longer. regarding the reuters article, i read it over and over yesterday, some thing does`nt sound quite right. regarding heritage oil, some one spoke to them yesterday and they said they had`nt tendered, they have just signed a JV with an iraqi co"